Today's letters: ‘We are in crisis. Our kids need help’

‘We are in crisis. Our kids need help’

Re: Teen’s Death Spark Bullying Motion, Oct. 15.
As a school counsellor, I am horrified by Amanda Todd’s suicide. I have worked with students from kindergarten to Grade 8. Over four years of counselling, I have completed 125 suicide assessments. I have done assessments with children in kindergarten. I had a child in Grade 1 tell me he would jump in front of a car.
These children are in regular classrooms across the province. Our wait times for children’s mental health for are up to two years. We have a program that does suicide assessments for children — and its funding is being cut.
We have had children go to the hospital for attempting suicide and they return home the same day. There are very few beds. When educational funding was cut, counsellors were the first to lose jobs.
Approximately 16% to 20% percent of our population has attention deficit disorder. Anxiety disorders are at 10%. Autism is skyrocketing. Tourette’s is increasing. Last year one-third of my class was identified with either a learning disability or a mental health/behaviour/chronic health issue.
We are in crisis. Our kids need help. Tracy Tillapaugh, Abbotsford, B.C.

Re: ‘Radio Mullah’ Sent Hit Squad After Teen, Oct. 13.
It’s been a sad and scary week for girls. Malala Yousufzai was shot because she refused to back down from speaking up for education and freedom for girls and women in Pakistan. Amanda Todd, who was lured by a pedophile to make one foolish mistake , committed suicide. Two different stories, both of which reflect a lack of respect for girls and women as valuable human beings.
Thank God for men like Langley MP Mark Warawa who, in putting forward Motion 408 (opposition to sex-selective abortion), is taking a stand for girls and women while they are still in the womb of their mothers—a very good place to start with respect for girls. Sarah Vandergugten, Cloverdale, B.C.

Knowing that another cyberbullying victim has taken her own life fills me with grief and rage. Grief that a young girl has lost her life because of endless abuse. Rage at how so-called “people” are so cruel.
I also felt foreboding, as I knew some would continue the abuse. Those sick “people” who find some way to make someone’s suicide “funny.” They didn’t care when you were alive, and they think it’s hilarious that you’re dead.
Amanda Todd once attempted suicide by drinking bleach. On Friday, I saw a picture online of someone pretending to chug Clorox with the subtitle, “Am I Amanda Todd yet?”
How do we stop these thugs from continuing the abuse after someone is dead? Chris Fraser, Burlington, Ont.

It is a unwarranted invasion of privacy to have a personal video broadcast on the Internet without permission, and the bullying and taunting that overwhelmed a young woman to the point of suicide was certainly unconscionable. But it is bewildering that the “flashing” of secondary sex characteristics can be perceived as shocking/degrading. The fashion today, even among mature women, is to show as much cleavage as possible, within the bounds of gravity, at the workplace and in the streets and shops.
Fashion magazines, videos, movies are almost obsessed with nudity. Who is shocked or offended?
This issue has a lot to do with a anachronistic double standard and the fetishizing of female sexuality as an outdated method of control.
No woman should have to die for such a trivial reason. Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert, Atla.

Catching and punishing so-called cyberbullies is all well and good but shouldn’t we be thinking about the other half of the equation? Why are our teens psyche so fragile that they can be driven to suicide?
Whatever happened to the adage: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”? The Internet may have taken compromising photos to a new level, but surely we can instill in our children the self-confidence and inner strength to persevere and endure bullying … and maybe every once and while lash out and smack their tormentors good and hard. David Montgomery, Cambridge, Ont.

Share your bullying story

Have you been bullied, online, in the schoolyard or at work? Or maybe you were a bully? Condense your experience down to 100 words or fewer and send it to letters@nationalpost.com by Friday at 2 EDT. Submissions will be published on Oct. 22.

Fond memory of James Coyne …

Re: ‘Coyne Affair’ Helped Shape Bank’s Rules, Oct. 15.
I wish to join the nation in expressing my condolences to James Coyne’s family, and to Andrew Coyne in particular, for the loss of his father, who was formerly the governor of the Bank of Canada.
I remember well the Coyne-Diefenbaker controversy of 1960/61. I had just arrived in Saskatchewan as an 18-year old Norwegian youngster. My Regina relatives were all rooting for Mr. Coyne and his courageous stand against the formidable Chief and his “Diefenbuck.”
James Coyne’s son is not a bad egg either. Sigmund Roseth, Mississauga, Ont.

… and of former U.S. senator

Re: Veteran Senator Succumbs To Cancer, Oct. 15.As a Baby Boomer enthralled with the U.S. political theatre, I was sorry to hear of the passing of Arlen Specter. His “calm voice of reason, consensus-building, and principle over polls” hallmarked his three decades of service, especially when he was compelled to defect to the Democrats in frustration with the Tea Party Republican’s “obdurate, rabid-far-right doctrine.”
Mr. Specter rose-up against the evangelicals like failed presidential candidate Pat Robertson, voted in favour of Barack Obama’s stimulus, and after a long history battling cancer was fittingly, “the crucial Senate vote” in passing The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
I can imagine the smile at the wonderful moment in Mr. Specter’s life when he witnessed Republican Chief Justice Roberts demonstrating a “refreshing and fierce impartiality” in his upholding the Obamacare legislation, contrary to what the Senator anticipated, mirroring an independence much like that spanned my favourite U.S. Senator’s career. David C. Searle, Toronto.

Contraception and other parts of Vatican II

Re: The Meaning of Vatican II, Conrad Black, Oct. 13.
Conrad Black states that “when the third Vatican council occurs, there will be some accommodation of the reality of contraception (which is not generally considered a confessable infraction anyway).”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that contraception is morally unacceptable (#2399) and intrinsically evil (#2370) and so is most certainly “confessable.”
Furthermore, in his 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI predicted contraception would lead to conjugal infidelity and to a “general lowering of morality” and would cause men to treat women as “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment” rather than as cherished partners. And finally, widespread acceptance of contraception by couples would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.
In our time, we have witnessed single parenting in unprecedented numbers and skyrocketing divorce rates, population control, fertility reduction quotas and coercive sterilization programs – and the promotion of abortion literally everywhere in the world. Pope Paul VI’s prediction has been realized. Catholic teaching has been vindicated. Maybe it’s time we listen up. Elaine Arnsby, London, Ont.

One of the most important accomplishments of Vatican II was the promulgation of Nostra Aetate (In Our Age), evincing a new vision for vastly improved Jewish-Christian relations in a new era. John XXIII understood fully the role played by certain Christian teachings as being one of the contributing causes of anti-Semitism. Accordingly, Vatican II was designed as a theological platform to re-evaluate what the Catholic Church thought, believed and stated about Jews. Although the formulation ought to be refined further, in line with current egalitarian spiritual sensitivities, in Vatican III the declaration marked a signal and welcome departure from a difficult interfaith narrative.
Given the recrudescence of anti-Semitism, parading as anti-Zionism in Europe, Nostra Aetate perhaps should be read more often in a spirit of authentic inclusiveness, tolerance and compassion.
“True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today ….” Erol Araf, Pierrefonds, Que.

Conrad Black neglects the main message of Vatican II — the universal call to holiness of every Christian, including lay people. As a woman, a university graduate and a mother of four daughters (and three sons) I am so grateful for the wisdom taught by the Church over the centuries, not just in the last 50 years. Contraceptive use is indeed a “confessable sin,” but it’s also not a healthy lifestyle choice. Whether someone is Catholic, atheist or any other religion, there are many reasons to avoid the dangerous, hormone-dependent, contraceptive lifestyle.
Natural fertility care, just like natural food, is part of a healthy and responsible lifestyle. The harm caused to our water ways and to our fish by contraceptive hormones is just one example of why avoiding contraceptive use makes sense. Paying a drug company thousands of dollars over a lifetime to fill my body with unnatural hormones makes no sense. I meet more and more women — young and old —who are realizing this. Kathleen Higgins, Delta, B.C.

Make teens clean: It’s good for them

Re: Leaving A Mess Makes Star Out Of ‘Mom On Strike, Oct. 12.
Calgary mom Jessica Stilwell went on strike to teach her daughters a lesson. However, the only thing she accomplished with her reactionary tactic is 30 minutes of fame on talk show circuit, as her daughters have not learned their anything at all, nor do they give a damn.
As a working mom and the mother of eight children, no one has to tell me how difficult it is to get the kids to do their chores. But it has to be done. Not just so that the house doesn’t look like a pig sty, but that the kids learn the much-needed lessons of responsibility, integrity, co-operation and consideration. These are lessons that should be taught from toddlerhood and reinforced daily, regardless of busy schedules and lippy kids.
Good luck, Ms. Stilwell. If your ultimate was to get your own reality show, you may be on the right path. If your aim was to teach your children some much needed lessons, only time will tell. However, I’m not holding my breath — except in your messy bathroom. Terry McDermott, Toronto.

We get a sense of time from the increasing and irreversible disorder in the universe. Unless we make an effort to resist disorder, it will only increase, as this mother already knows, and her children are, we hope, beginning to discover.
Within schools there is the attitude: “Why should I pick that up? It’s the janitor’s job.” Yet in Japan, students spend time at the end of every day, cleaning the school. This ethic could be usefully implemented here. Gordon Watson, Rocky Mountain House, Alta.

Maintain a sense of outrage

Re: The Butcher Within, book excerpt from Soldaten by Sönke Neitzel And Harald Welzer, Oct. 12.
As a volunteer guide at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum, I read the Soldaten book excerpt with great interest. The question of how to explain the transformation of ordinary men and women into willing and complicit parties to the indiscriminate murder of their co-workers, friends and neighbours is constantly on my mind. As I guide high school students through the exhibits, all I can do is to raise questions; it is up to the students to grapple with that question.
The idea that a soldier in uniform learns to embrace violence and death is one thing. The real question is how the regular people can became every bit as guilty and responsible. What would drive reasonable, peace-loving parents to denounce others, in the knowledge that their actions would lead to their expulsion and death?
My mother and her family were forcibly removed from their home in rural Hungary and marched down the streets to the train platform and the ghetto. Their neighbours stood by in the streets, jeering and applauding. This was a scenario that was repeated innumerable times across Europe.
It is touching and somehow reassuring to observe the reactions of teenagers as they learn about the details of an entire continent turning against their own. One can only hope that they maintain their sense of outrage and injustice as they grow into adults. Peter Mann, Montreal.